Paul Johnston

Despite Glynn Cameron taking his 150th senior wicket and two good batting performances from the Shields twins, Union slipped back into fifth place in the Borton Cup ladder with an exciting 24 run loss to top of the table Valley at Awamoa Park's artificial wicket.

With heavy rain falling in the morning it looked like play may not start but with the moving of all Senior matches to artificial and the sky clearing around 11am play started at the scheduled 12.30. Union won the toss and put Valley into bat who, despite the small boundaries, struggled to score against some tight bowling. When the first wicket fell (danger man Nick Webster, run out from a direct hit by Paul Johnston at mid on) Valley were 24-1 at a run rate of only 2.4 an over. As the innings progressed Valley still struggled to put the runs on the board but still had wickets in hand. After 24 over's Valley where 70-3 before Cameron took three wickets in three over's, and sitting on a hatrick at one stage, to leave Valley 100-6 in the 28th over and with Geoff Mavor joining Matt Pyle at the crease. The two started slowly looking to hold their wickets, and moved the total to 135 at the 40th over before they started to attack the Union bowlers. In a display of good batting they then scored 96 runs in the final 9 over's with Pyle falling 6 short of his century not out for 94 at the completion of the innings. Mavor was 48 not out and the pair putting on 131 for an unbroken 7th wicket partnership. Cameron was the best of the bowlers taking 3-50 of his ten over's. Valley recording a total of 231 in what seemed a moderate total on the small field.

Union got of to a bad start in their chase losing their first 4 wickets for the addition of only 41 runs. Ben Cant and Cameron then looked to bring their team back on track combining for 55 runs before the loss of Cant for 23 runs, and then suffered a double blow with Cameron skying one from the bowling of Geoff Mavor, caught out for 19. This brought to the crease Thomas Shields to join his twin brother Jeremiah as they curbed their natural attacking ability to rotate the strike and tick the Union total over. Never looking troubled in both of their innings they slowly and gradually put Union in a strong position with the required run rate hovering at five an over. With the score at 173, in a calling miss-hap, Thomas Shields was run out for 41 bringing Valley back into the game in the 44th over. Paul Johnston was next in looking to hit out but was caught after skiing one for 10, while Phillip Crossan was bowled again looking to attack the boundary. With one wicket remaining Jeremiah Shields looked to hit out as well bringing up his half-century with a boundary but was out the following ball caught of the bowling of David Simpson, Union falling 25 runs short of victory.

Seniors now fall back to fifth place one win away from 2nd equal, with it all to play for in the following weeks.

Player Pages:
Glynn Cameron | Ben Cant | Antony Cromwell | Philip Crossan | Duncan Drew | Paul Johnston | Jeremiah Shields | Thomas Shields |

Valley 231-6 ( M Pile 94no, G Mavor 48no, B Neil 18, C Leckie 17, D Malcom 11, Cameron 3-50 )
Union 207 ( J Shields 50, T Shields 41, B Cant 23, D Drew 20, G Cameron 19, McKenzie 3-45, Simpson 2-22, Mavor 2-39 )
Valley won by 25 runs
Full scorecard for the match